How This Queer Asian Dance Party Rang in the Chinese New Year

By Out.com Editors

The Instagram bio for Bubble_T reads “WHERE ASIANZ RULE BUT EVERYBODY’S WELCOME,” and there could not be a more accurate description. Since its inception, the monthly-ish “slaysian” dance party featuring drag, performance, bold lewks, and intersectional attendance policies has become one of the coolest and radically different cultural forms to come across New York’s nightlife in quite some time.

Bubble_T is more than a party, it’s a movement, aptly named after a like-it-or-hate-it Taiwanese beverage that is polarizing to many westerners on account of its gummy tapioca balls and fantastical colors. Every party comes with the following mandate: “BUBBLE_T IS A SAFE, INCLUSIVE SPACE CARVED OUT FOR QUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE OF COLOR. RACIST, CLASSIST, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC, AGEIST AND/OR TRANSPHOBIC BEHAVIOR WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. IF YOUR BEHAVIOR IS FOUND TO BE DISRUPTIVE, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE.” That is the very principle that the party was founded on, shaking its fist at the rest of New York’s exclusionary nightlife scene.

Put on by the slaysians themselves — Stevie Huynh, Nicholas Andersen, Vivianne Yi, Pedro Vidallon, Paul Tran, and the drag queen Bichon — Bubble_T celebrated this Lunar New Year with Banana magazine inside a hollowed-out MoMA PS1 with floor-to-ceiling red interiors, nonstop drag and dance shows by queens like West Dakota, HaraJuku, and Untitled Queen and bites by Bar Pa Tea, Jeepney, and Kichin. Take a look inside, feel some fomo, and book tickets so you don’t miss the next one.